


The Black Lily of Shanghai

by Mimizuku9



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Psychological Horror, Romance, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:46:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13780014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimizuku9/pseuds/Mimizuku9
Summary: [ON HIATUS]. AU. Modern-day Shanghai. Yao Wang, a violinist haunted by grief, becomes enchanted by the eerily familiar man he meets in the ruins of an abandoned theatre. Following one curiosity after another, Yao quickly finds himself neck-deep in hidden pasts and century-old secrets – but by then the dream has already become a nightmare. RoChu.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This story contains graphic depictions and references to suicide. Please read at your own discretion.
> 
> AUTHOR'S NOTE: All character names are ones Hidekaz Himaruya has either officially assigned or suggested for each character. The excerpt at the beginning is from the poem "Я вас любил" ("I Loved You") by Alexander Pushkin.
> 
> This is the prelude; no major warnings apply just yet. But expect a story about ghosts, reincarnation, and mental breakdowns :)
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

 

_Я вас любил: любовь еще, быть может,_

_В душе моей угасла не совсем_

_I loved you; and perhaps that love has yet_

_To be extinguished completely from within my soul._

 

* * *

In the city that never slept, Yao found himself appropriately restless at the stroke of midnight. Red and gold swam in his head, fading wisps of a dream that had felt more like memory than imagination. He couldn’t remember what it had been about, only that it had set his heart into a beating frenzy, and that he’d rather stare up at the ceiling than close his eyes and dream it again.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, he blindly reached for the wrinkled pile of clothes by his bed. The canary was quiet, likely asleep, so he tiptoed his way through the cramped house when he was dressed, sliding a bag up onto his shoulder and creeping out through the back door. He would take the old shortcut, as always.

The distant roar of a motorbike ripped through the air. A few streets away, music faintly throbbed. The faraway high-rise towers still dazzled with lights like stars, though floor by floor they were beginning to disappear. He walked towards them, through an alleyway with hanging laundry for a sky and onto the open streets of the former French Concession, crosscutting through an old park where he and Kiku had carved out a well-worn path in the grass as children.

It was here that he felt him strongest, in the perfect stillness of a quiet street that resembled how it had looked the night before, and the many nights before that. There wasn’t a soul around to dare to taint it, save for Yao who teased the shadows by stepping only where the streetlights reached, and hummed the songs that had once been sung by two. The street echoed it back to him, and with a shiver he quickened his steps, slowing them only when he reached cracked stone steps. He glanced up to see what new damage had been done today.

Scaffolding. What used to be a grand, albeit crumbled, theatre, was now some millionaire’s pet project, and though at least a dozen or so attempts had been made in the last half-century to fix it, none had ever succeeded. The work was too dangerous. The building had a sly way of dropping beams and stage lights on workers, as if by selection offering its parts without compromising its structural integrity. No one was sure how it even stood upright by this point, though Yao had enough faith in it to enter night after night. He was its honoured guest since the age of seven, and in all fifteen years not once had he gotten hurt by it.

He carefully stepped through the bars holding up the new scaffolding, gently pushing open the main door. It gave way with a metallic creak, a little hello, a greeting. He slipped in and turned on his flashlight, tutting with dismay as the light flickered and died. He’d forgotten to bring spare batteries.

Like raindrops, piano keys trickled in the dark. Yao tensed.

Another sound, a chord, a deliberate climbing of its notes until they reached their peak.

“Who’s there?” Yao called out.

A brushing, quiet breath, maybe laughter. “ _Why don’t you come up here and see?_ ”

The words sounded strange, in that low, rolling voice. Yao couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something off, something about that voice that was making his heart beat a little faster. He felt around in the dark for the familiarity of the theatre seats to guide him back out, when the stage lights buzzed and flickered on, spitting sparks into the dusty air. There was a man seated at the piano onstage, wrapped in a dark coat and with hands so pale they made the piano keys look off-white.

“ _Come up here.”_

“What are you doing in here?” Yao asked, ignoring the quickening of his pulse as he walked across the flattened, mucky carpet. “No one is allowed here. People get hurt.”

Yao climbed up onto the stage, annoyed that the man – this intruder – didn’t appear to be listening. When he was within an arm’s reach, the man’s moon-pale face turned to him – a hard gaze staring into Yao’s own. Black pupils followed him when Yao took an apprehensive step back.

“ _Do you play?”_ the man asked, his lips moving but the rest of his face still as stone. Yao nodded. The man tilted his head in the direction of a stool. _“Follow after me.”_

Yao glanced at the man’s hands, poised and ready on the piano. He took a seat on the stool and unzipped his bag, heart beating hard in his chest as he pulled his violin out. He never improvised for strangers, only on empty stages and in intimate shadows. For the past year or so, it had only been the same repertoire of cold technical pieces, ones he gave little warmth or heart to. Yet, when this man asked, he felt compelled to play for him the same way he once played for Kiku.

The first few notes struck hard – deep, rumbling waves that set Yao’s hairs on end, climbing to a quick crescendo before free-falling. Then it was quiet, and out of the silence softer, sweeter notes rose out, and Yao’s own hands longed to move in tandem. He drew the bow stick, following a melody he’d never heard before, though his fingers told him otherwise. He closed his eyes for a moment – for perhaps his only peaceful moment of rest in this night – and felt that he was perhaps dreaming, that he had returned somewhere he had no recollection of.

Feeling conscious of being watched, he opened his eyes, blinking to the sight of the dazzling, broken stage, and the ghostly man across from him. A mirthful look glided his way, a faint smile dancing on that man’s lips.

“ _Moya chyornaya liliya… Close your eyes again for me.”_

Yao didn’t quite want to. There was something catching in that look, something beautifully broken about it, though he shut his eyes once more to find that euphoric feeling again. He carried on, letting his hands do the work, until he realised that all he could hear was the haunting, lonely song of his violin. He opened his eyes.

The man was gone – and with him, he had taken the melody. Though Yao attempted to retrieve it, his hands could no longer play it, and within a few moments, he could no longer even remember what it had sounded like. One by one, like the towers of Shanghai at the stroke of midnight, the stage lights fizzled out and died.

It wasn’t until dawn broke over the horizon, until Yao tiredly crept out the theatre doors, that he realised what had sounded odd about the way the man spoke. He had been speaking in Russian. A language Yao knew none of. Yet, even as the sky shirked off its night veil, Yao could still remember what that man had called him, what that name meant. _Chyornaya liliya_ , he had called him – his black lily _._


	2. Reacquaintance

“Once more.”

Jia Long rolled his eyes. Yao pretended not to notice and sat back in his chair, listening to the flow of the violin. The notes were well-practiced, yes, but too hurried, too imperceptibly wobbly in their tempo. That was why the metronome was there, ticking away, though his student didn’t seem to pay it much attention. Yao signalled for Jia Long to stop.

“Listen to the metronome for a bit and try again. It needs to be slower.”

Jia Long sighed and relaxed the violin on his shoulder. “It’s been an hour.”

Yao checked his watch. “We have time for a little more. Just play it one more time.”

“I already did.”

“No, you rushed through it. Again. It’s a waltz – play it like one, like something you could dance to.”

Jia Long pursed his lips. He didn’t quite have the language barrier as an excuse anymore; though he used to like to pretend his Mandarin wasn’t very good, or that Yao’s Shanghai accent was too strong, Yao had long since cottoned on in the past three years that Jia Long understood his instructions quite perfectly.

“Fine,” Jia Long muttered. Yao signalled for him to start playing. The violin sang once more – this time, leisurely, sweetly, _measuredly_. It was far better now. Yao was pleased, and apparently so was the canary. It chirped from the living room, as if attempting to join in. Yao caught Jia Long suppressing a smile.

A loud knock, and then several more in rapid fire, put the music to a halt. Yao motioned for Jia Long to continue and got up to answer the front door. Cursing softly under his breath, he yanked it open.

“Yong Soo, I told you I have lessons –”

A newspaper punched out towards Yao’s face. “Read this and tell me I’m the best.”

Yao scoffed and pushed the newspaper away, revealing a grinning Yong Soo behind it. “Come back later –”

“It’s about your precious theatre.”

Yao paused, long enough for Yong Soo to let himself in without much resistance. He grabbed the newspaper out of Yong Soo’s hands and scrutinised the article. After months of renovation over the summer, an opening ceremony had finally taken place. A full house, which had apparently gotten to witness the orchestra warm up before a stage light and its clamp had fallen. A cello player’s head had been crushed beneath it. A handful of musicians had since quit the orchestra.

He sighed and glanced up at Yong Soo’s gleeful face. “Don’t you have an ounce of shame in you?”

“I know, I know, it’s terrible. But –”

“There’s a free spot for you.”

Yong Soo nodded enthusiastically. “And you. One of their violin players quit. Is that fate or what?”

“It’s what happens when people tamper with old buildings.”

“But doesn’t it feel a little too coincidental? I mean, that stage clamp had a screw loosened, but have you even seen those things? They’re more like bolts. If you ask me, someone – or something – wants you in that orchestra.”

Yao winced a smile, recognizing that Yong Soo was not-so-successfully attempting to appeal to his superstitious side. “I’m not auditioning. Spirits or not.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t play for orchestras. Or theatres.”

“You totally do! Just last year you –”

“Yong Soo,” Yao said slowly, almost seething. “Leave it be.”

It was enough to make him go quiet for a moment. Though it was what Yao intended, he instantly regretted it. He didn’t like it when their conversations fell silent like this. It was an ungentle reminder that things were different now, that there were things they’d somehow decided would remain unspoken. But surely Yong Soo knew what he was asking of Yao. To play his violin – to truly play it, with intention, with emotion – in front of a judge panel? No audience deserved it. That man in the theatre had been an accident, and Kiku had been, and always would be, the one for who Yao played.

Yong Soo was the first to break the silence. “Are you coming down to Frisco’s tonight?”

Yao broke out of his daze. “Yeah.”

“I thought to bring someone over for the piano part.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Yeah, but for real this time. I’m getting sick of just cello and violin. I don’t care if the tips will get split three ways, at least we won’t be playing trio pieces without a piano.”

Yao blinked. “Duets would be fine.”

Yong Soo gave a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders, though just as he turned away Yao could spot him rolling his eyes. “I’ll see you later.”

When Yao muttered his goodbye and the door shut, he eased out a breath. The house was noticeably quiet after Yong Soo left. What had happened to that waltz, exactly? He turned to investigate, when he bumped into a figure. Jia Long had just been on his frantic way to the door, pale faced.

“ _Aiyah_ … Why did you stop playing?”

“I finished it.”

“Without the metronome as well?”

“S-Sure,” Jia Long said hastily. He yanked open the door. “See you next week.”

The door slammed shut, and this time, he was alone. His tired body fell to his couch, eyeing the newspaper lying on his coffee table. He wondered what the theatre looked like now, all polished and put back together, changed so that it fit with the rest of this increasingly modern city. He mulled on that for a minute or two, before helplessly dozing off.

.

Though Yao’s nap had been tortuously short, and his work at Frisco’s exhausting, by the time he got home and slumped into bed, still in his suit, he was no longer tired. The night had a strange way of doing that to him.

He passed the first hour away on his phone, playing soundbites of that language he’d heard that man speak to him in the theatre. None of it registered the way it had then. It was all meaningless sounds to Yao’s ears now, though he had the nagging feeling something was different about this language, too. The way the man had spoken, his voice was deep, but his words had a lightness to them, a clarity like bells in the wind. Yao sighed and shut his phone, not sure if he was even chasing something real. Only in dreams could you seemingly understand a language you never learnt.

The second hour was spent worrying. He would hardly call it an infatuation, but since that dream-like encounter in the theatre, Yao had been trying to find ways to meet him again. He looked for the flickering glow of the stage lights through the theatre doors, searched for scuffles in the dark, for the trickle of piano notes on that hollow stage, but was only ever met with disappointment. At some point, due to the renovations, he couldn’t even enter the building. Yao was locked out, and had to sit at home with his restless hands and his furrowed brow, waiting for sunrise. Sometimes he tried to sleep –

_(close your eyes again for me)_

– but nightmares dressed as dreams, cloaks of flames and urgent whispers, only brought him further unrest. He needed the peace of that theatre. He needed that song again, that swaying, dizzying piece that had carried him off somewhere. How did it go again?

The canary chirped from the living room. It sounded lonely, so Yao got out of his rustled sheets to give it company. He pulled off the cover of its cage, and smiled when the bird greeted him.

“What is it, _Bǎobèi_?” He opened the cage and extended his hand to the bird, allowing it to step onto his index finger. “Aren’t you tired?”

The canary made panicked quips as it darted glances around the room. Its chest pulsed quickly, as though its heart would burst through. Yao tried to lightly stroke the top of its beak, though it wouldn’t sit still enough for him to do that. He looked around the room for what was making it so jumpy, but there was nothing, merely the faint hum of the fridge in the kitchen.

“Shall we go for a walk?” Yao asked as he turned back to look at the bird. “Hm?” It was past midnight, and by now most of the city lights were out, but the walk to the theatre would be short. Besides, it had been a long while since he played for Kiku. Perhaps he could find a way into the building, now that the renovations were complete.

His hands were jittery as he placed the bird into its travel cage. Slipping on his shoes, he hoisted his violin bag onto his shoulder, picked up the cage, and stepped out into the mid-October chill.

The walk to the theatre wasn’t quite the peaceful ordeal it usually was. On a Friday night, most young expats took to spending their salaries on the restaurants and clubs of the former French Concession, where its elegance could have fooled you that you were walking through the quaint streets of Paris or London, had it not been for the local man frying unidentifiable meat in the street corner, or the elderly woman dumping water on loud partygoers from her balcony window. It was with relief that he ducked through the quiet alleyways and the old park, walking further away from the drunken noises until it was silent, and his feet reached the bottom of polished, smoothed steps. He glanced up to find his dear theatre, now dressed up in glossy posters and modern doors.

Since the front doors were locked, Yao would have to take an old way in – a route through the back he and Kiku took when renovation attempts were being made on the main doors. He walked around to a tight alleyway behind the building, where there was an unassuming entrance: a stairwell that dipped down into the ground and led to a cage door. Its gates were rusted and weakened by more than half a century of rainfall. The lock had long since broken off.

He slipped in past the cage door, entering a muddy passageway before finding his way into the building itself. Upstairs, he ducked through cobwebbed and cramped hallways, snaking through the paths actors and acrobats would take backstage, lest they should be seen by their patrons and break the illusion of a spectacular show. Yao parted the heavy curtains of the front stage, stepping out into a faint shaft of light.

From up here, the entirety of the theatre expanded before him; red velvet seats dyed indigo by moonlight; archways yawning up towards the sky with polished dark wood and curling, twisting vines of glittering gold; windows pierced just below the dome, flooding the theatre with a pale glow. Yao’s heart fluttered at the sight of this, standing here at centre stage and feeling as though someone was watching, waiting for him to speak.

He sat off the edge of the stage, setting the cage beside him. Still a little dazed, he fumbled to get his violin out of the bag. The bird chirped in anticipation. When he was poised to begin, he focused his gaze on a theatre seat, thinking for a moment of Kiku sitting there as a child, his feet dangling over the edge of the seat. And there had been a smile, a little limp one as though Kiku didn’t quite feel it, as though he was only smiling for Yao’s sake and not his own. Or was Yao, perhaps, remembering things differently –?

The canary fell silent.

Yao blinked and looked to the bird. It was shaking in its cage. “ _Baobei–?”_

Footsteps scuffled softly across carpet. Yao snapped his gaze to the shadows beyond the seats, watching with a crawling chill as a pale face emerged from the shadows. Heavy-lidded eyes smiled at him, a glimmer of playfulness that the man’s cruel line of a mouth lacked.

“You again.”

“ _Did you miss me?_ ” The man’s voice was deep, murmuring, still ringing like winter bells in a language that should have been foreign to Yao.

“You understand me, don’t you?” Yao asked. “Why don’t you speak in my language?”

The man didn’t answer, only glanced down at his feet as he walked up to the stage in leisurely strides. When he reached the stage and stood close by Yao’s feet, he looked up and considered Yao with a blinkless, levelled gaze. Yao scrutinised him back, burning his own stare into the man’s face. He focused on the man’s tall nose, which he noticed, was slightly crooked as if it had once been broken.

“ _You shine like her, in the moonlight…”_ the man sighed, reaching a hand out towards Yao’s. A gold ring gleamed on his finger. “ _I wonder if you feel like her, too.”_

Yao pulled his hand away. A dark chuckle left the man’s pale lips.

“ _Tell me your name._ ”

Yao didn’t answer; he wouldn’t answer to anything spoken in that language. He wasn’t sure how or why he could hear words that sounded foreign but felt familiar. All he knew was that this man had appeared in Yao’s sanctuary uninvited, and was yielding this language knowingly, teasingly to Yao, confusing him.

“I don’t speak Russian,” Yao said in his own tongue, though he didn’t expect this man to understand. Perhaps that was the point. He straightened up to sit taller above the other man. “You’ll just have to translate.”

The man blinked in surprise – a rare and fleeting expression on such a stony face. He took a small step back and offered a faint smile. “ _My Chinese is not very good; I’d be embarrassed to have you hear me that way..._ ”

Yao raised a brow, and watched the man before him make something he was quite obviously uncomfortable with: compromise.

“… but if it suits you better, I can try.”

Yao felt the conflicting urge to smile. At best, he had been anticipating heavily-accented Mandarin, but this was beyond his expectations. Yao spoke back brightly, in the language he only ever used with elderly locals these days, or with relatives who’d long since left the city: “You speak Shanghainese?”

“What else would I speak here?”

“Mandarin is usually enough for foreigners. What’s your name?”

The man’s expression softened, eyes lingering on Yao’s face before answering. “Viktor Braginsky. And yours must be –”

“Yao Wang.”

“…I see.”

The stage fell quiet; a silence in which the faint rustle of fabric was enough to startle Yao, as Viktor’s icy hand took hold of his wrist. They looked hungry, those pale, unblinking eyes, as if wanting to drag Yao into their depths, driven by something unspoken that he couldn’t even begin to unveil.

“The song,” Viktor eventually whispered out, his grip relaxing. Perhaps Yao was seeing things, fabricating a flimsy connection between him and this man, but he thought he could see grief in those wintry eyes. “Let me play it to you once more.”

Yao’s gut instinct told him to leave – he was starting to feel strangely ill, like bats were flying madly in his chest – but he knew he would only face less real, less escapable nightmares at home. “Yes,” he said, watching the light fade on Viktor’s face as the moon hid behind the clouds. “I’d like that.”

.

Yesterday it was the sock drawer; today it was the wardrobe. Ivan didn’t question it.

Squinting in the daylight from his window, he rummaged through the pile of clothes on the end of his bed, looking for the least wrinkled items. There was nothing he could do about a locked wardrobe, and besides – he glanced at the clock as he got dressed – he was twenty minutes late. He should have been out of his apartment and on the metro twenty minutes ago.

His alarm started to ring. He picked it up and cursed it as he turned it off. He looked around his room for socks, surprisingly finding none on the floor. He grabbed the handle of his sock drawer, took a little breath, and yanked it open.

Rows upon rows of neatly folded socks. As it should be. He grabbed a pair and slipped them on, tied his shoes, grabbed his briefcase and then, yes, the pills. He hadn’t taken any since last night, as the faint throb in his right arm reminded him. He took two – dry, because he was in too much of a hurry to get a glass of water. He coughed as he locked his apartment door.

On the metro, he sat with his notes, navigating the drunken scribblings of the night before. Something had come to him a few months ago when he’d first arrived in Shanghai – a dream, or perhaps a memory, of a melody. He could no longer recall what it had even sounded like, only how it felt, a tainted sweetness, like nostalgia for something he’d never known. Sometimes at night, he could hear it ringing faintly, though he could never quite catch it; had since been straining his head for it, begging to whatever cruel muse he had that it would be returned to him.

His symphony simply wouldn’t be complete without it. Though he told Katya that he’d found it, the final piece, that it was all ready to be given to the choreographers and the orchestra players, he was sure it would come to him by the time they’d recruited everyone. He was close. He was getting it, note by note, drip by drip from wispy recollection.

He felt his hand around his pocket, realising he had yet to receive a berating text from Katya for his lateness. His hand felt an empty trouser pocket. No wonder.

The metro doors hushed open, the crowds pushing by his seat. He stood up. This was his stop.

.

Yong Soo had been looking at him funny all morning. He’d stopped by Yao’s house to settle his nerves before his audition at the theatre; distracting himself with the canary and pillaging Yao’s food cupboards before seating himself on the couch to wait. When the clock finally struck half past eleven, Yong Soo’s hands were wringing themselves in his lap. It was only ever in black trousers and ties that he became jumpy like this – only when auditions called – and so Yao didn’t think too much of the paranoid looks coming his way, nor of the insistent claim that Yao had a black cat _somewhere_ in his house.

“I told you, I _wish_ I had one, but the canary wouldn’t last a day with one around,” Yao said as he locked the front door. Yong Soo shrugged, hoisting his cello bag up onto his shoulders. He insisted that he didn’t need help loading it into the car, leaving Yao to wait patiently at the wheel. He heard Yong Soo curse softly behind him.

“What?”

“I left my coat on your couch.”

“Well, go get it. Your audition’s in half an hour.”

Yao dropped his house keys into Yong Soo’s open palm, shooing him away so they wouldn’t be late. If it had been his own audition, he would have been inclined to tempt fate by taking his time. But as Yong Soo’s chauffeur, it was only getting on his nerves.

It took a good minute for Yong Soo to re-emerge from the house. He came out holding his coat, not wearing it, almost letting it hang down to his knees. He dumped it in the backseats with the cello and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Let’s go.”

The drive to the theatre was expectedly frenzied. Squeezing out of jammed lanes and into tight shortcuts, almost getting his side view mirror ripped off by a bullet-speed motorbike driver – it was business as usual in high-traffic Shanghai. An impending audition made it a different story altogether. By the time they’d arrived at the theatre, seven minutes to twelve, Yong Soo had already climbed into the backseat to grab his cello and was waiting at the edge of his seat for a quick getaway. When Yao stopped the car, a neatly folded paper brushed against his shoulder.

“What’s this?”

“Yours is at one.”

Yao swivelled around his seat. “ _What?_ ”

Yong Soo unwrapped his coat off Yao’s violin bag. “Don’t get mad at me, okay –?”

“ _Aiyah!_ I’m already mad! I’m more than mad. I _told_ you –”

“Look, I got everything sorted out. I brought your letter of confirmation, your violin, _and_ I hid a spare suit and tie for you in the back, because as you know I’m a fantastic pal like that–”

“A good friend wouldn’t make an application for me without asking!”

“Well, _so-rry_ for exploiting an employment opportunity on your behalf. I’m terrible, I know.”

“And anyway,” Yao said, flicking his wrist to open the folded letter. “What am I supposed to play when I go there? Did you think of that? I haven’t prepared any of these…” He faltered when he glanced at the repertoire listed on the letter. It was everything they’d been playing at Frisco’s for the past two weeks. At Yong Soo’s request.

“I think you’re pretty well prepared.”

Yao folded the letter and slapped Yong Soo’s arm with it. “You meddling –”

“You can thank me later!” Yong Soo chuckled as he ducked out the car, dragging his cello bag behind. “Wish me luck!”

“Go to –” The door slammed shut. “–hell.”

Yong Soo grinned and waved cheerfully as he backed his way towards the theatre. Then he nearly tripped on the steps, and decided to start walking properly. Yao sighed and softly wished him luck.

He leaned back in his seat and stared at the letter in his hands. An audition for a prestigious orchestra, in the theatre he considered a second home. A year ago, Yao would have pounced at the opportunity. Now it was like diving off a cliff. His hands were clammy. This was what Kiku wanted, for the both of them, and so what would be so terrible about auditioning, anyway? Would it be so bad to break the routine he’d preserved the past year? Would it truly mean something if Yao spent fewer hours at home, took fewer sleepless walks in the night, became so busy with playing for the orchestra that perhaps, he wouldn’t even have time to think about how empty his house felt? The minutes went by like guilt-wrought seconds imagining a life where he’d forgotten Kiku.

A finger tapped on his window. He was startled to find Yong Soo standing outside, still wearing his grin. He rolled the window down.

“How did it go?”

“I think I just destroyed my musical career,” Yong Soo croaked out. His teeth chattered as he chuckled. “Aren’t you up in a half an hour?”

Yao glanced to the clock on the dashboard. Had he really spent half an hour dazed off in here? “I don’t know.”

“Come on.” Yong Soo opened the door. “Let’s wait inside. I think I saw a vending machine in there.”

Waiting inside, despite the warmth and the snacks, was worse. In the practice room next door, violins and flutes and cellos fought and struggled to overpower each other. Last minute practice. Kiku never bothered with it. He was always calm, to the last second, until the final curtain call. Yao never used to understand it – he was one of those kids furiously reciting bits and pieces of repertoire in an effort for perfection. Now, holding his violin in his lap, he knew better.

“Number 23?” the stage manager called out from the doorway. Yong Soo nudged Yao’s shoulder.

“Isn’t that you?”

Yao tensed in his seat, fumbling with his letter to see his number. He shot out of his seat, saving his violin from falling before walking over towards the stage manager. With his heart feeling like it was beating in his throat, he followed the manager to his spot backstage. A black curtain had been set up, concealing the path from his spot backstage to centre-stage. He slipped off his shoes and walked across, stopping when he caught sight of the grand piano, shaded by the curtain. Yao wanted to look away –

_(– but he had always loved watching him play it, seeing those hands flit from key to key, up and down octaves, lighter than air yet stronger than a crashing waterfall. Viktor had reminded him of that, had filled a little void Yao forgot was empty –)_

He lifted the violin to his shoulder, facing away from the piano. He took a measured breath, the only sound in this silent theatre, and began.

The first piece of his repertoire began smoothly. With his eyes lost in the black of the screen, he could easily imagine it was only another night at Frisco’s, playing for happily drunk couples, to whom any pleasant-sounding melody would do. And then there was a pair of rushed footsteps, the familiar, yawning creak of a door which sent a chill up Yao’s spine. His eyes fluttered closed, feeling something different now. The air felt cooler, maybe, or perhaps his nerves had eased up. His fingers were moving faster, smoother, and soon it was as if they weren’t his anymore. The melody changed. The tone flipped, and what was once a sprite tune was now a rich, sombre one. Bleeding into his violin was an expressiveness he only reserved for when he was alone, for those peaceful moments in which he wished Kiku was listening. Whispers filled up the theatre beyond the screen, rising. Yao knew it, this voice emerging from his violin, he knew it from somewhere…

The curtains hushed as they were yanked away. Yao halted, surprised by the man now towering over him. Viktor, he realised, was much taller than he’d expected.

“That piece,” Viktor said, his gold ring glittering on his finger as he pulled the screen back further, his knuckles white. “Where did you learn it?”

Yao blinked, hearing the frustrated sighs of the judges from the audience seats. He furrowed his brow. He briefly wondered if it was a trick question. “From you. You played it for me.”

Viktor’s pale, almost sickly, face shook. “I’ve never met you in my life.”

.

His name, apparently, was Ivan.

That was the name barked out as the stage manager pulled Yao away by the arm, hearing the sound of a woman speaking rapidly in foreign words as the man with the golden ring was pulled away, too. Yao was taken back to the waiting room, and was kept there for several hours.

The crowd thinned out with each wave of auditions, contenders with flutes and cellos being escorted in and out of the room for their semi-final and final auditions. Yong Soo became louder and braver with every audition passed, and now, knowing he’d made it into the orchestra, he was chatting up a new friend – a pianist, probably – by the vending machine. Yao and the other violinists occasionally shared impatient glances. None of them had been called back for subsequent auditions, but they hadn’t been dismissed either.

Yao tried not to give it away that this was likely his own fault. Or rather, Ivan’s fault, for yanking that screen away, for making a spectacle out of it, too. _I’ve never met you in my life –_ those were dramatic words. Irritatingly confident. Was Yao really that forgettable? Or was perhaps Yao being forgetful himself? How could he be sure, after all, if he had met Viktor – _Ivan_ – in shadows and half-light? Did he mishear his name, too? Worse yet, how could he be sure those meetings had even taken place, that they weren’t dreams instead?

How could he even be sure _this_ was real? The days were split haphazardly by stolen naps; midnight, dawn and dusk often followed the other uninterrupted. He dug his nail hard into his arm just to make sure. The sting, whilst confirming that this was not a dream, did little else to clear his confusion.

The sky outside grew dark with the wait. Yong Soo had, at some point, left with his new friend, though Yao couldn’t recall seeing him make his escape. It was with a collective fidget in their seats that he and the other violinists watched the stage manager enter the room. The auditions for violin, the stage manager informed them, had been compromised, and would have to take place again the next day. Among mutters and groans, Yao felt strange relief. Relief that he could reclaim his lifeless, comfortable routine for yet another day.

He walked to his car alone, grimacing at the distant barking of students on their way to clubs and bars. He didn’t like to see this street crowded. It ruined the sense of age of the theatre, the delicate history Yao could only imagine but never fully know. He reached for the ice-cold handle of his car door, when he noticed the reflection of a figure that was not his own.

“Can I help you?” Yao asked as he turned around. He had to tilt his head up to look at this man, this not-Viktor, in the eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Ivan fumbled, in heavily accented but surprisingly eloquent Mandarin. “I must have inconvenienced you, with the yanking of the screen. I’m not sure how to explain myself…”

“You can speak to me in Shanghainese, if that’s easier for you. Or did you forget that, too?”

Ivan’s brows furrowed. He had dark circles under his eyes, and after a moment’s scrutiny, Yao realised that his nose looked different too, somehow. Straighter, though this could easily be a mere trick of the light. Yes, a trick of the light. He was sure this was the Viktor he had met before. Certain. He even had the same golden ring, on his left ring finger.

“I don’t speak Shanghainese,” Ivan said, slowly like Yao was being the strange one here.

Yao scoffed. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”

“What is funny?”

“Pretending you don’t remember. Switching languages just to confuse me. Did you make a bet with a friend?”

“No, I –”

“Tell me, are you winning right now? Am I agitated enough for you?”

“Listen, I –” Ivan broke into a weak chuckle. He made a step forward that was one step too far for Yao, forcing him to back up against the car to maintain his space. “I’m sorry. I truly am. But what you played in there… I’ve been writing it.”

“I’m not surprised. You played it to me two weeks ago.”

“But that’s the thing: _I_ have no such recollection of doing that.”

“Maybe you were drunk,” Yao said, though it was a story he didn’t buy himself. Ivan didn’t buy it either. Yet both of them were happy to pretend.

“Maybe.” Ivan’s eyes studied the features of Yao’s face, his brows drawing in careful focus. Yao waited for him to break the gaze, to step back so he could turn around and get in his car. When the moment lingered on for too long, he cleared his throat.

“Problem solved, then.”

“It seems so.”

“I should be going –”

“Oh, no, of course –”

“ – if you could just –”

Ivan stumbled back, giving Yao leeway to open his car door. Just as he started up his engine, Ivan had leaned down to peer in through the window, his words muffled by the glass.

“You’re coming to the audition tomorrow.”

Yao assumed he had meant it as a question, even if it sounded more like a command. He waved his hand dismissively, eventually nodding in the hopes it would appease him enough to be left alone.

“And Yao?”

Yao looked to him expectantly. Ivan made a small motion with his hand for Yao to roll down the window. Yao sighed and opened it halfway.

“What is it?”

Ivan’s lips swept into a gentle smile. “I look forward to hearing you again tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope you remember me.”

“I’m certain I will. Have a good night.”

Yao couldn’t help but scoff at that. “I’ll try.”

It wasn’t until he’d started up the engine, until he began to drive off, that he realised Ivan had remembered his name, if not anything else. Drunken blackouts did strange things to people – at least that’s what Yao told himself as he glanced at the rear-view mirror, watching the lingering, half-lit form in the distance.

He lay his head on his pillow that night dreading nightmares, fearing shadows. Yet what haunted him most as he trained his tortuously half-lidded eyes on his ceiling, was the thought of Viktor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'll *try* to be a bit quicker with the next update ahah. Feel free to leave your thoughts via comment, feedback is very much appreciated :)


	3. Author's Note

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

Hey guys, *really* sorry to disappoint if you were expecting an update, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm putting "The Black Lily of Shanghai" on hiatus for a bit.

That's not to say I've given up on writing it - far from it, I'm still working on it and feel passionate about this AU. But updating as I write isn't really working for me, for both personal and creative reasons, and that it would be best to start posting again once I have the story finished in its entirety. I want to give you guys the best, most polished version of the story possible.

Thank you all so much for your patience and support. I'll hopefully be back soon to tell the rest of this story :)


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